‘Wanderer, kommst du nach Pforta …’: the tension between Classical tradition and the demands of a Nazi elite-school education at Schulpforta and Ilfeld, 1934–45

Abstract

This paper explores the tensions which arose when Schulpforta, Germany's leading humanistic boarding school, was forcibly turned into a Nazi elite school (a Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt, or Napola). The time-honoured traditions of Christianity and enlightened humanism previously cultivated at the erstwhile Landesschule zur Pforta (alma mater of Fichte, Ranke and Nietzsche) were swiftly subordinated to the demands of National Socialist ideology. Schulpforta, a former monastic foundation, was radically dechristianised, and the school's Classical curriculum soon served only to emphasise those aspects of Greco-Roman Antiquity which could ‘help the Third Reich achieve its destiny’, portraying the Greeks and Romans as proto-National Socialists, pure Aryan ancestors of the modern German race. The Napola curriculum focused on sport and pre-military training over academic excellence, and contemporary documentary evidence, memoirs and newly obtained eyewitness testimony all suggest that the Napola administration wished to assimilate Pforta with any other Napola. This idea is borne out by comparing the case of Napola Ilfeld, a former Klosterschule (monastery school) with a similar history. By the mid-1940s, Ilfeld had lost almost all connection with its humanistic past. Ultimately, we can see the erosion and Nazification of these schools' Christian and humanistic traditions as exemplifying in microcosm tendencies which were prevalent throughout the Third Reich.

Keywords:

• Schulpforta
• Napola
• Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt
• Nazi elite school
• humanistic education
• Landesschule zur Pforta
• Klosterschule Ilfeld
• National Socialism
• Classical tradition
• Third Reich

Notes

  1. On Pforta's extensive fame and symbolic reputation as an “ideal gymnasium”, see, for example, Flöter, Eliten-Bildung in Sachsen und Preußen, 13, 534. It should be noted that the school is variously referred to in the sources as “Schulpforta”, “Pforta”, “Schulpforte”, and “Pforte”. For the purposes of this article, I shall only refer to the school using the latinised spellings “Pforta” and “Schulpforta”, since these seem to have been the official spellings used respectively for the Landesschule and the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt (on the controversy which arose over this spelling being used for the name of the Napola, see Schneider, “Die sächsischen Fürstenschulen unter dem Einfluss nationalsozialistischer Bildungspolitik,” 155, n. 40).

  2. The first three Napolas were situated in Plön, Potsdam and Köslin. By the end of the war, there existed 43 schools, all of which followed the curriculum of a contemporary Realgymnasium, with the exception of Ilfeld, Schulpforta, Neubeuern and Haselünne, which followed the curriculum of a humanistic Gymnasium (offering both Latin and Greek).

  3. Aufnahmebedingungen der NPEA Naumburg.

  4. For a comprehensive review of the current literature on the Napolas, as well as a consideration of the methodological questions involved in using ex-pupils' eyewitness testimony, see the introduction to Roche, Sparta's German Children.

  5. For example, Arnhardt, “Reformerisches im Denken und Handeln an den Fürsten- und Landesschulen Meißen, Schulpforte und Grimma zwischen 1900 und 1930” and Die Fürsten- und Landesschulen Meißen, Schulpforte und Grimma; Doerfel, “Der Griff des NS-Regimes nach Elite-Schulen;” Flöter, Eliten-Bildung; Schneider, “Die sächsischen Fürstenschulen.” Arnhardt and Flöter have also written articles treating NPEA Schulpforta alone, respectively entitled: “Schulpforte im faschistischen Deutschland” and “Von der Landesschule zur Nationalpolitischen Erziehungsanstalt.” Here, as in much of his previous work, Flöter concentrates upon changing attitudes to religious pedagogy; in a sense, this article provides a complement to his, in that it focuses upon changing attitudes to the Classics. For more on Arnhardt's work, see n. 16 below.

  6. On the atypical nature of Schulpforta's transformation, see also Flöter, “Von der Landesschule,” 52.

  7. On this, see for example Bialas and Rabinbach, eds., Nazi Germany and the Humanities; Hausmann and Müller-Luckner, eds., Die Rolle der Geisteswissenschaften im Dritten Reich 1933–1945; Knigge-Tesche, ed., Berater der Braunen Macht; Näf, ed., Antike und Altertumswissenschaft; Noakes, “The Ivory Tower under Siege;” Nolte, “Behavioural Patterns of University Professors in the Third Reich;” Seier, “Nationalsozialistisches Wissenschaftsverständnis und Hochschulpolitik” and Remy, The Heidelberg Myth (for further references see 261, n. 2, 268, n. 82).

  8. Cf. Bialas and Rabinbach, eds., Humanities, x–xi; Noakes, “Ivory Tower,” 372, 376; Oexle, “Wirklichkeit” – “Krise der Wirklichkeit” – “Neue Wirklichkeit,” 12–14; Remy, Heidelberg Myth, 7–9.

  9. Cf. Abendroth, “Die deutschen Professoren und die Weimarer Republik,” particularly 19–25; Bialas and Rabinbach, Humanities, eds., xii; Noakes, “Ivory Tower,” 374–5; Reimann, “Die ‘Selbst-Gleichschaltung’ der Universitäten 1933,” particularly 40–8; also Reimann, “Zum politischen Bewusstsein von Hochschullehrern in der Weimarer Republik und 1933”; Reimann, “Hochschule zwischen Kaiserreich und Diktatur;” Remy, Heidelberg Myth, 48, 238.

 10. Noakes, “Ivory Tower,” 393–8; Stuchlik, Funktionäre, Mitläufer, Außenseiter und Ausgestoßene; Hartshorne, The German Universities and National Socialism, 42–7, 54–71.

 11. Arnhardt and Reinert, Die Fürsten- und Landesschulen, 176–9, 183–4, 189; Doerfel, “Griff nach Elite-Schulen,” 418; Freundeskreis, Die Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Ilfeld, 1. 494–5, 499.

 12. Doerfel, “Griff nach Elite-Schulen,” 422; Meyer, NPEA Ilfeld, 5–6.

 13. These two case studies therefore complement Marianne Doerfel's wide-ranging examination of the variety of “co-ordination” processes employed at the six other German “elite schools” treated in her article, which included not only Grimma, Meißen and Joachimsthal, but also Roßleben and the Ritterakademien at Brandenburg and Liegnitz.

 14. Weihe, “Die Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 231.

 15. For example, Müller, “Humanistische Bildung;” Reinhold, “Werner Jaegers Paideia;” Gneiße, “Wahre Bildung,” 102.

 16. Much of the following account is drawn from Heumann's volume Schulpforta. Tradition und Wandel einer Eliteschule (1994), which is the most recent history of Schulpforta – though see also Heyer's Aus der Geschichte der Landesschule zur Pforta (1943), and Arnhardt's Schulpforte – eine Schule im Zeichen der humanistischen Bildungstradition (1988). It should be noted, however, that both these works are recognisably the products of the dictatorships under which they were written; indeed, all of Arnhardt's works tend to deploy a problematic combination of Socialist rhetoric and humanistic hagiography regarding Schulpforta's Classical traditions. For further discussion of the tendentious nature of Arnhardt's scholarship, which is particularly evident in his treatment of NPEA Schulpforta (both in his article “Schulpforte im faschistischen Deutschland” (1982), and in Die Fürsten- und Landesschulen Meißen, Schulpforte und Grimma, which was published 20 years later), see Schneider, “Die sächsischen Fürstenschulen,” 144, n.5. Useful information on the school's history can also be garnered from Flöter, Eliten-Bildung.

 17. Heumann, Schulpforta, 132, 46, 50.

 18. Heumann, Schulpforta, 82–5, 90–7.

 19. Heumann, Schulpforta, 127–8.

 20. Heumann, Schulpforta, 151.

 21. Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 167; cf. 56.

 22. Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 167; Arnhardt and Reinert, Die Fürsten- und Landesschulen, 162.

 23. Heumann, Schulpforta, 179–82, 131; see also Arnhardt and Reinert, Die Fürsten- und Landesschulen, 162.

 24. Heumann, Schulpforta, 133.

 25. Arnhardt, “Reformerisches,” 94–7; Arnhardt and Reinert, Die Fürsten- und Landesschulen, 179–80; for a timetable from 1897, see Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 118.

 26. As mentioned in n. 5 above, Flo¨;ter has published extensively on Pforta's religious pedagogy. However, it should be noted that two of his articles on the subject (“Religiöse Bildung und Erziehung. Die Landesschule Pforta und das Joachimsthalsche Gymnasium im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik”, and “Reformpädagogik in der religiösen Bildung und Erziehung. Religionsunterricht und Alumnatserziehung an der Landesschule Pforta und am Joachimsthalschen Gymnasium im ersten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts”) are to a very considerable extent identical, both with each other, and with Chapter III.3.2 of his monograph (Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 140–51). I have therefore cited the monograph throughout the following discussion.

 27. Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 9.

 28. Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 142–3.

 29. Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 140–2, 145–8, 150–1; Flöter, “Von der Landesschule”, 47.

 30. Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 148–9.

 31. Arnhardt and Reinert, Die Fürsten- und Landesschulen, 175. On the extent to which Pforta had previously been under the control of the Prussian Culture Ministry, see Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 9–10.

 32. Flöter, “Von der Landesschule,” 38.

 33. Doerfel, “Griff nach Elite-Schulen,” 413, quoting Wilamowitz-Moellendorff.

 34. Arnhardt, Schulpforte, 169–70; Heumann, Schulpforta, 214–8.

 35. Doerfel, “Griff nach Elite-Schulen,” 413, quoting Wilamowitz-Moellendorff; Heumann, Schulpforta, 219–20.

 36. Flöter, “Von der Landesschule,” 38–9.

 37. Fliedner, “1931–1933, die Zeit des Aufbruchs in Pforte,” 30; cf. Doerfel, “Griff nach Elite-Schulen,” 418. Scholtz states that approximately half the Oberprima (aged 18–19) and some of the Unterprima (aged 17–18) were already members of the Nazi Party in December 1932 (Nationalsozialistische Ausleseschulen, 125).

 38. Fliedner, “1931–1933,” 30–1.

 39. Fliedner, “1931–1933,”, 31.

 40. Pförtner Blätter, 8, no. 3; 9, no. 1.

 41. Doerfel, “Griff nach Elite-Schulen,” 424.

 42. On Kranz and the defamation campaign, see Heyer, Geschichte der Landesschule, 157; Dorfmüller and Konetzny, Schulpforta 1543–1993, 92–3; Doerfel, “Griff nach Elite-Schulen,” 421; Flöter, “Von der Landesschule,” 39–40; Heumann, Schulpforta, 227–30. On Kranz's liberalism, see Mensching, “U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, W. Kranz und das ‘Dritte Reich,’” 362–3. He was succeeded as headmaster by Dr. Bruno Kranz (no relation).

 43. Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 231. Even at the time, it was suspected at neighbouring schools that the charges were fallacious (e.g. Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 1, 507). On the subsequent trial of Joachim Haupt (first Inspector of the NPEA), see Personalakten Joachim Haupt: BArch (ehem. BDC) SA Haupt Joachim, 7.4.1900. Haupt visited the Landesschule in 1934 on preliminary fieldwork for the Ministry, but seems simultaneously to have developed homoerotic attachments to a number of pupils. This led to his losing his position, his reputation and, ultimately, his place in the Nazi Party. For more on this affair, which is too complicated to be recounted here in detail, see the Personalakten cited above; on Haupt's background, see Roche, Sparta's German Children, 193–4.

 44. Doerfel, “Griff nach Elite-Schulen,” 422; Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 231–2; Flöter, “Von der Landesschule,” 40–2. It should be noted that much of the material from the Reich Education Ministry was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War; hence the paucity of pertinent material in the German Federal Archives.

 45. Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 231–2.

 46. Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,”, 232.

 47. Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,”

 48. The official title by which a Napola pupil was addressed was Jungmann. This term is the male form of “Jungfrau” (virgin/maiden), and has strong connnotations of the Männerbund. It should also be noted that, for the first time, the school was required to take pupils from the age of ten or 11, rather than 13 or 14 (Heißmeyer, “Erziehung zur soldatischen Moral,” 53).

 49. Dörfel, “Griff nach Elite-Schulen,” 423–4; cf. also figures for 1937 and 1941 in Arnhardt and Reinert, Die Fürsten- und Landesschulen, 192. On the prevalence of pastors' sons at the Landesschule, see Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 418–9, 523–4.

 50. Arnhardt and Reinert, Die Fürsten- und Landesschulen, 160; Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 420–1, 523.

 51. Dörfel, “Griff nach Elite-Schulen,” 424. The “four-child” condition could only be circumvented by widows, guardians of orphans, severely disabled war veterans and “alte Kämpfer”, long-standing members of the Nazi Party who had joined before September 1930. For a full explanation of the system of free places, and the Reich Education Ministry's attempts to interfere with them, see Flöter, Eliten-Bildung, 345 ff.; 399–401.

 52. Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 231.

 53. cf. Schieffer, “Die Pforte als Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt,” 223.

 54. In this instance and elsewhere, I have construed Erziehung with the connotation of “training” rather than “education”, since the idea that Schulpforta ought to remain a Bildungsanstalt (rather than a mere Erziehungsanstalt which cared nothing for the life of the mind) lay at the heart of ex-pupils' concerns about the school's National Socialist future. cf. in particular Müller, “Humanistische Bildung.”

 55. Rust was himself a Classicist by profession; in fact, he had turned down the opportunity to take up a teaching position at Schulpforta himself some years earlier (Pedersen, Bernhard Rust, 22).

 56. cf. Schneider, “Die sächsischen Fürstenschulen,” 149.

 57. See further n. 59 below.

 58. For more general examples of these tendencies, see Bork, “Der Lehrer des Griechischen;” Burck, “Vom Wert und Wesen des deutschen Gymnasiums;” Hubert, “Die alten Sprachen im deutschen Gymnasium;” Klinz, “Nationalsozialistisches Gedankengut im Lektüreplan des griechischen Unterrichts.”

 59. For example Reeh, “Werten der humanistischen Bildung;” Wenzel, “Das griechische Erziehungsideal.” One article from 1941 (Seeckt, “Über den Wert der humanistischen Bildung”) merely reprints a passage from a recent biography of General von Seeckt, in which the General praises his Gymnasium education at Karlsruhe. The article evidently seeks to suggest that a Classical education must be worthwhile simply because great generals such as Seeckt have benefited from it.

 60. Die Pforte 12, no. 4 (1935): 222.

 61. Die Pforte 12, no. 4 (1935): 222 (emphasis original).

 62. e.g. Pförtner Blätter 3, no. 3 (April 1939), 82–3.

 63. Schulpforta, Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta [Werbeprospekt], 2. N.B. All translations are my own.

 64. Schulpforta, Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta [Werbeprospekt], 3–4. Emphasis original. N.B. “Nordic” and “Aryan” are essentially interchangeable terms in Nazi rhetoric.

 65. Note the discarding of the formerly traditional title of “Rektor” in favour of the official designation used for all Napola Directors. For more on these men's background, see Flöter, “Von der Landesschule,” 42, 44–5.

 66. Weihe, “Die Umstellung der Landesschule,” 16.

 67. Paustian, Die Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Plön, 21.

 68. Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 233.

 69. Schieffer, “Erziehungsziele der Nationalpolitischen Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 11. For instance, presumably in order to ingratiate himself with the Altpförtner, and to alleviate their concern about what will become of Pforta's deeply rooted Christian tradition, Schieffer disingenuously attempts to paint Hitler as “a deeply religious man” (Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,”, 9). Two years later, Schieffer would ensure that religious studies in any form were removed from the school curriculum.

 70. Schieffer, “Die Pforte als Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt,” 223; cf. Hansen, Ecce der Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta.

 71. In Nazi rhetoric, the term “hellenistic” was often deeply pejorative, denoting the supposedly racially degenerate nature of the post-Classical Greek world, which was allegedly unable to create culture, but only to catalogue and academicise it in Alexandrian fashion.

 72. Schieffer, “Die Pforte als Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt,” 223.

 73. Schieffer, “Erziehungsziele der Nationalpolitischen Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 5. Emphasis original.

 74. Schieffer “Erziehungsziele der Nationalpolitischen Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,”, 6. Emphasis original.

 75. Schieffer “Erziehungsziele der Nationalpolitischen Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,”, 7–9. Interestingly, a number of newspaper articles (published both at the time of the Umwandlung, and on the occasion of Pforta's 400^th anniversary in 1943) share many characteristics with Schieffer's speech. Thus, an article on Schulpforta in Der Aufbau from 1 August 1935 (Zogelmann, “NPEA”) stresses the “revolutionary” nature of the NPEA, and their radical departure from the outdated educational goals of earlier times, which “developed a mechanical piling up of knowledge without valuing capability and character”. Traits such as comradeship, courage and physical fitness are also brought very much to the fore. In another article from the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung on 2 April 1943 (Schulze, “Schulpforta im neuen Geist”), the Inspector of the NPEA, August Heißmeyer, is quoted extensively: “What use is a boy … who possesses unheard-of intellectual gifts, but in general is actually a weak, nerveless lad, with no will of his own when it comes to making decisions? Our vision is the cheerful type of boy who comes from good, racially fit parents, and is physically healthy, courageous, and possesses an intellectual freshness and astuteness.” Only one of the articles (Witte, “Die Tradition von Schulpforta”), taken from the Frankfurter Zeitung on 20 May 1943, concentrates on Schulpforta's erstwhile tradition to the exclusion of other, more political, considerations.

 76. Personalakten Kurt Person: BArch (ehem. BDC) SSO 369A, Person, Kurt, 24.4.1898 – appraisal dated 13 August 1936.

 77. Personalakten Kurt Person: BArch (ehem. BDC) SSO 369A, Person, Kurt, 24.4.1898 – letter from Schieffer commending Person for promotion to the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer, dated 20 March 1937.

 78. Person, “Was bedeuten uns die Griechen und Ro¨mer?,” 15.

 79. Person, “Was bedeuten uns die Griechen und Roemer?,”, 21.

 80. Another article which may be of interest in this regard was written for the cultural journal Westermanns Monatshefte by Gustav Skroblin, one of the senior officials in the Inspectorate of the NPEA. Entitled “Tradition and the Future” (Tradition und Zukunft), the article was reprinted in Die Pforte in 1942. Skroblin begins with a vignette from a trip which a group of Jungmannen from Schulpforta made to an (unnamed) English public school in 1938. He describes the pride of the English boys and masters in the antiquity of their institution, and their arrogant assumption that no German school could possibly have such a long-standing tradition. They were shocked by the Pfortan put-down: “Oh, that's nice. Then your institution is almost as old as ours … Schulpforta's been around for 800 years” (Person, “Was bedeuten uns die Griechen und Roemer?,”, 3). Skroblin then goes on not only to situate Pforta's tradition in the context of other, humanistic Napolas such as Ilfeld, but also collocates it explicitly with the more militaristic tradition of those NPEA which had been founded on the site of former cadet schools such as Plön, Potsdam, Köslin and Bensberg, or the Theresianum in Vienna (ibid., 4). Here, as in the other texts discussed, we find a tension between a desire to command the respect which Schulpforta's “800-year-old” tradition gives, and a need to subordinate the humanistic elements of that tradition to a homogenised conception of what a Napola education must involve, unshackled by academic concerns. When Classicism is discussed, it takes a politically correct form which translates Greece and Rome into the ideological language of the National Socialist present (ibid., 5–6).

 81. Schulze, “Schulpforta im neuen Geist.” For similar sentiments, see also Pförtner Blätter 3, no. 3 (April 1939), 80.

 82. Schulze, “Schulpforta im neuen Geist.” For a former pupil's account of this particular Mutprobe, which involved jumping onto an unsaddled horse, see Dorfmüller, Schulpforta 1543–1993, 92.

 83. Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 238.

 84. Pförtner Blätter 2, no. 3/4 (March 1938), 65.

 85. Naumburg had in fact gained the nickname “Napola Zackig” (Napola “Snap-to-it!”) because of its particularly harsh and militaristic way of life (Leeb, Wir waren Hitlers Eliteschüler, 89).

 86. Wassermann, “Schulpforta 1935–1945,” 14.

 87. Wassermann, “Schulpforta 1935–1945,” 14

 88. Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 237. While it may be true, as Wassermann suggests, that the Ilfelder were also steeped in a similar tradition (“Schulpforta 1935–1945,” 14), it seems likely that those Jungmannen from Ilfeld who were selected to go to Schulpforta would have been those most suited to the ideological demands of their task, viz., the “Napolisation” of another former Klosterschule.

 89. Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 236.

 90. Vahl, Napola Schulpforta, 1. For an Ilfeld pupil's similar experience, see Friedrich Diekmann, quoted in Overesch, ed., Das Dritte Reich im Gespräch, 9–10.

 91. Vahl, Napola Schulpforta, 1. For an Ilfeld pupil's similar experience, see Friedrich Diekmann, quoted in Overesch, ed., Das Dritte Reich im Gespräch, 32.

 92. Selke, Auch eine Jugend in Deutschland, 29.

 93. Pförtner Blätter 3, no. 2 (November 1938), 36.

 94. Pförtner Blätter 3, no. 3 (April 1939), 92–3.

 95. Knüpffer, “Interview mit Hans Rettkowski,” 32.

 96. Günter O., personal letter to the author, 8 September 2010.

 97. Vahl, Napola Schulpforta, 45.

 98. Cf. Dietrich Steinkopf, quoted in Leeb, Wir waren Hitlers Eliteschüler, 84–5.

 99. We may surmise that the emphasis on Thermopylaean self-sacrifice, and on the Simonides-Schiller epigram “Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta …” was also to some extent a response to the collocation of the battles of Stalingrad and Thermopylae in the propaganda campaign which accompanied the Sixth Army's catastrophic defeat at Stalingrad in January 1943. See further Watt, “Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta”; Roche, “In Sparta fühlte ich mich wie in einer deutschen Stadt.”

100. For a full treatment of dechristianisation at Schulpforta (including its uncharacteristic lack of haste), and the background to Petersen's retirement, see Flöter, “Von der Landesschule,” 48–51.

101. Weihe also states that, as part of the modernisation process, the “Gloria” text was covered over with a portrait of Hitler (“Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 245).

102. Hans Rettkowski, personal email to the author, 6 February 2012. For other eyewitness accounts, see Dietrich Steinkopf, quoted in Leeb, Wir waren Hitlers Eliteschüler, 81; Vahl, Napola Schulpforta, 42.

103. Weihe, “Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt Schulpforta,” 256–7.

104. Both schools also ended up in the Soviet zone of occupation in 1945, though Ilfeld no longer exists. In 1943, the school was merged with NPEA Ballenstedt, so that its buildings could be used as the administrative headquarters of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp from 1944 onwards.

105. Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 2. 494.

106. Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 496–7.

107. Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 494.

108. Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 494–5.

109. Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 495.

110. Meyer, NPEA Ilfeld, 5–6.

111. See also Meyer, NPEA Ilfeld, 8; Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 2. 501. As at Schulpforta, religious services and prayers remained part of life at Ilfeld until 1937.

112. Meyer, NPEA Ilfeld, 7–9.

113. Meyer, NPEA Ilfeld, 9, 7.

114. Ilfeld Nachrichtenblatt n.s. 1, 1934, in Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 1. 2–3. Emphasis original.

115. Ilfeld Nachrichtenblatt n.s. 1, 1934, in Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 1.

116. Ilfeld Nachrichtenblatt n.s. 1, 1934, in Freundeskreis, Ilfeld Similar sentiments were also expressed at length by Hauptzugführer Nothdurft in the tenth-anniversary volume, in which he explicitly stated that Ilfeld had no wish whatsoever to continue the old type of Classics teaching found in the Klosterschule, or to consider itself the heir of such a tradition (Nothdurft, “Der altsprachliche Unterricht in unserer nationalpolitischen Erziehung,” 14–15).

117. Ilfelder Blätter 2 (March 1939), in Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 1. 183; Biesantz's article is reprinted in Meyer, NPEA Ilfeld, 75–8.

118. Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 2. 507.

119. Thus Jungmann Kirchberg (Obersekunda in 1936) was happy to go and work on a farm because it meant he would not have to study any Latin and Greek during the holidays (Ilfeld Nachrichtenblatt 4, Christmas 1936, in Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 1. 93–4). See also Ilfeld-Kriegsbrief 4 (November 1939), in Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 1. 205.

120. Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 2. 535.

121. In the first newsletter, published in 1934, one Jungmann felt no shame in describing how moved he was by a candle-lit service which he attended in a small chapel before he returned to his Geländespiele (Ilfeld Nachrichtenblatt n.s. 1, 1934, in Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 1. 8). By 1936, Jungmannen describing experiences on the Kingswood School exchange remarked particularly how very peculiar they found it that the English boys were so religious, and that they prayed openly at their bedsides before lights-out (Ilfeld Nachrichtenblatt 3, Easter 1936, in Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 1. 57).

122. Ilfeld Nachrichtenblatt 5 (Christmas 1937), in Freundeskreis, Ilfeld, 1. 118.

123. Ilfelder Blätter, Kriegsheft 31 (November 1943), in Freundekreis, Ilfeld, 2. 187.

124. Rasch, “Ilfelder Jungmannen,” 2.

125. See further n. 58 above; also Nickel, “Humanistisches Gymnasium und Nationalsozialismus.”